U.S. District Court Will Abstain in Jill Stein Ballot Access Case

Posted on by October 22, 2024

On October 19, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson held a hearing in Stein v LaRose. At the conclusion, he stated from the bench that he believes the issue belongs in state court, and said Stein should have gone to the State Supreme Court. The issue is whether votes for Stein should be counted. She is on the ballot but the Secretary of State says her votes won’t be counted because someone not officially part of the Stein campaign filed a withdrawal of the vice-presidential nominee.

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U.S. District Court Will Abstain in Jill Stein Ballot Access Case — 20 Comments

  8. An ultra capitalist like Trump is exactly what Karl Marx said would be the last stage before workers revolution. We want workers revolution leading to dictatorship of proletariat followed by peaceful communist anarchy where everyone will be very happy and the capitalist scumbags will be dead. The sooner we get there the better. Vote for Trump.

  10. Yes, workers will wait until we see whether Trump is elected to start our violent overthrow of the capitalist system. You can call it No Harris, No Peace, but in this case making peace with oppression is still detrimental.

  17. Nuna said: “Sure seems like they’re stalling to make a ruling until after election day.”

    Well, they pretty much have to stall, don’t they? It’s too late to change the rules now, in the middle of the election cycle. Early voting has already started. Every voter who has received an absentee ballot, visited a county Board of Elections website, or voted in-person at the Board of Elections has already seen the “official” notice that votes for Jill Stein will not be counted, and most of those voters have cast their votes accordingly.

    If there is a ruling in Jill Stein’s favor, all of those posted notices will need to be removed. The Board of Elections will have to mail retraction notices to every voter, explaining the new circumstances. There will be voters like me, who already cast their ballots, who will want to change their vote, only to be told “Sorry, it’s too late now.” This could anger these voters if this happens while the election is still ongoing. In short, it will add yet another layer of complexity and confusion to an already extremely anxious and polarized political environment.

    Furthermore, publishing the retraction of the previous notices about votes for Jill Stein not counting would only serve to give more free advertising to the Jill Stein campaign, which is something that neither major party wants, and may actually encourage more voters to vote for Jill Stein who otherwise might not have done so. Therefore, it is best (from the perspective of the people in positions of power) to wait until after the election to see how many voters deliberately disobeyed the notice about votes for Jill Stein not counting, and marked their ballots for her anyway, so that only those votes may be counted. If anybody else who wanted to vote for Jill Stein complains at that point, there will be no question about whether or not it is too late for them to change their vote. It is too late, end of story.

    Of course, there could be the exact opposite effect for some voters: They only marked the ballot for Jill Stein as a protest vote, because they were told that those votes would not be counted. In this case, they never would have voted for Jill Stein if they had known that the vote would count. So, there could be a problem either way. Hopefully, the disenfranchised Jill Stein voters and the accidental Jill Stein votes offset each other, so that the final result comes close to actually reflecting the intended will of the voters.

  19. @Pat Kiser

    It’s certainly too late to undo the full extent of the “damage” (Stein will never get as many votes in Ohio as she would have gotten if LaRose never said votes for her would not be counted), but that doesn’t make it too late to issue a ruling (whatever votes are still cast for Stein, notably on election day itself, could still be counted).

    It isn’t the judicial branch’s problem if reversing the secretary of state’s decision adds complexity and confusion to an already extremely anxious and polarized political environment. And that is not a consequence they should ever be considering when they decide whether or not votes for Stein should be counted.
    Similarly, what either major party wants SHOULD also be irrelevant to the pursuit of justice. (Aren’t Ohio judicial elections NOMINALLY non-partisan?)

    Besides, I really don’t think the free press would even make up for the votes Stein already lost to LaRose’s decision, much less significantly surpass them. It’s too late for that: there will be lots of people who will have seen their votes won’t be counted but not that they will be after all, as well as people who having seen both no longer trust that there won’t be a third flip on appeal and who will therefore no longer vote for Stein, and of course people who are annoyed by how poorly Stein handled it and thus won’t for her.

    “Therefore, it is best (from the perspective of the people in positions of power) to wait until after the election”

    Yes exactly, you hit the nail on the head: just because stalling is to the advantage of those in power, does not mean (and should not mean!) that they HAVE to stall.

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